About Alex
In his performing years, Alex was highly decorated in the marching arts starting his career at Jersey Surf in 2018 and performed with The Cadets from 2019 to 2022 as a soloist. An alumni of James Madison University, Alex lead the Marching Royal Dukes as a drum major and tuba section leader. In the classroom, Alex earned his Bachelors in Computer Science and Independent Scholars while being a brother of Phi Mu Alpha, maintaining multiple music minors, and performing in several ensembles such as the JMU Chorale and JMU Brass Band.
After graduating, Alex immediately began teaching local marching bands and joined the brass team at Jersey Surf. He currently works at Accenture Federal Services as a senior software analyst specializing in machine learning and computer vision.
Why OpenMarch?
The hope is not to be the be all and end all of drill writing, but we want to make it way easier. Musescore has done amazing things for the composition community, yet Dorico and Sibelius still exist. Professionals will always want the premium features and OpenMarch will be for those who are fine with a simple but fast tool. Many young designers and band directors of smaller groups don't need all of the professional features. They don't need advanced 3D rendering and they don't need support for thousands of objects. They just want to design.
I wake up every day and spend hours of my free time in between my job and teaching with the hope that OpenMarch will make the marching arts world healthier. Everyone is money strapped, but the activity is alive and well from the passion of the performers and educators. If a student wants to explore their passion for drill writing, or a band director wants to write drill for their own band, there should be an accessible tool to do so.
I have been overjoyed with how quick people have stepped up to help get this mission accomplished. The community feedback has already been astounding and filled with support.
